City Commissioner Charlotte Rodstrom is under fire for how much she’s paying her new aide while also opposing raises for other municipal employees.

Fort Lauderdale activist Robert Walsh is raising questions about whether Rodstrom is hypocritical in her actions. She is paying Neesa Warlen $70,865 a year to be her commission assistant – more than Mayor Jack Seiler and other commissioners pay their aides.

The city in April approved 5 percent raises for police officers and firefighters over the objections of Rodstrom and Commissioner Bobby DuBose. The commission has been debating now whether to provide the same raises to non-unionized workers, including top administrators.

“They are playing politics with this 5 percent raise, particularly when Mrs. Rodstrom hired an aide that is the highest paid there is,” Walsh said. “The 5 percent raise is warranted and justified.”

Rodstrom defends Warlen’s salary, noting that Warlen has both law and accounting degrees. She also notes Warlen had been the director of Broward County’s family success division and thus can help coordinate services in her district.

“I base salary on qualifications and the amount of work I expect someone to do,” Rodstrom said. “This is an apple-oranges argument. I just don’t think now is the time to be doing raises. It would be sending the wrong message to the public when we should be watching our spending.”

According to a public records request Walsh made, the salaries of the other commission aides range from $53,248 to $67,412. The pay range for Warlen’s position goes from $54,017 to $76,294.

Have you noticed how comments have tailed off to nearly nothing while the Sun Senile demands you have a Facebook account in order to post? Have you noticed that even the left wing nuts that run hollyweed note that Facebook is a massive invasion of privacy and are making a movie showing the CEO of Facebook as a sexual pervert? Maybe the people who run the SS are out of the loop.
Salaries and benefits of public employees are out of control. Rather than hiring, they should be firing.

To Hey Harcourt @10:40, actually the original poster and you are both correct. One may post without an account in this and Mayo's blogs, but to comment on a story can't be done without an account. Since I won't/don't have an account I can't post on any other stories, just Blogs. It is ok, I only read the SS for the comments, they are more detailed, better researched and better written. Ahhh, the Sun Sentinel...Yesterdays' News, Tomorrow!!!! ,

They are playing politics with this 5 percent raise, particularly when Mrs. Rodstrom hired an aide that is the highest paid there is,” Walsh said. “The 5 percent raise is warranted and justified.” So if one person is over-paid, the solution is to over-pay everybody? That's some pretty nice fiscal responsibility there, Lou.

Charlotte Rodstrom is clueless. She votes against almost any resolution or ordinance that involves spending money. Period. She doesn't care whether the spending is necessary to provide city services or not. She has gotten a free ride to vote NO on almost everything because she knows the other commissioners will act more responsibly and vote to approve essential spending.

But the biggest boondoggle that the City of Fort Lauderdale has instituted in the last few years is the City Auditor's office. That office spends many hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for staffing, and what can they show for it? They certainly have not saved the City more than a fraction of what they cost. The benefits paid to the City Auditor himself are obscene. Everyone is afraid to criticize an auditor, but what has this office really saved the city? Scott Wyman or Brittany Wallman - that should be your next story. But beware - he's a slick one!

It makes no sense. And still no pay parity for the 250 City workers who supervise employees who received a 5% raise back to October 2009. How would you like to supervise someone who makes more money than you? Figure that one out and then wonder why morale is sinking to a new all time low.
Good luck to us all.

Charlotte Rodstrom is clueless. She votes against almost any resolution or ordinance that involves spending money. Period. She doesn't care whether the spending is necessary to provide city services or not. She has gotten a free ride to vote NO on almost everything because she knows the other commissioners will act more responsibly and vote to approve essential spending.

But the biggest boondoggle that the City of Fort Lauderdale has instituted in the last few years is the City Auditor's office. That office spends many hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for staffing, and what can they show for it? They certainly have not saved the City more than a fraction of what they cost. The benefits paid to the City Auditor himself are obscene. Everyone is afraid to criticize an auditor, but what has this office really saved the city? Scott Wyman or Brittany Wallman - that should be your next story. But beware - he's a slick one!

Charlotte Rodstrom is clueless. She votes against almost any resolution or ordinance that involves spending money. Period. She doesn't care whether the spending is necessary to provide city services or not. She has gotten a free ride to vote NO on almost everything because she knows the other commissioners will act more responsibly and vote to approve essential spending.

But the biggest boondoggle that the City of Fort Lauderdale has instituted in the last few years is the City Auditor's office. That office spends many hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for staffing, and what can they show for it? They certainly have not saved the City more than a fraction of what they cost. The benefits paid to the City Auditor himself are obscene. Everyone is afraid to criticize an auditor, but what has this office really saved the city? Scott Wyman or Brittany Wallman - that should be your next story. But beware - he's a slick one!

How much did Rodstrom's previous two aides get paid? Why no uproar when they both mysteriously were removed from their positions after only glowing public remarks from the Commish? Lots of rumors swirled then about why they had to go - something about not willing to carry out unethical requests/demands from the boss, etc. At least this aide is a lawyer - that might come in handy for her some day!

Robert Walsh has had a vendetta against Commish Rodstrom for years.
I think that would make a more interesting Sun-Sentinal story than quibbling over a salary that is well within the appropriate range for that position.
BTW...if the aide is a lawyer, it's a great investment considering how every developer wants to sue the City if he doesn't get his way.

Charlotte is the most immature, disrespectful commissioner this city has ever had. She mocks the the city manager and anyone in disagreemant with her. During meetings, she rolls her eyes and makes faces while her colleagues are speaking. She is constantly flirtting with the city auditor while others speak. Hey Charlotte, he's not interested in you. You're old, and not very bright.
Charlotte needs to be voted out and the auditor position needs to be eliminated. He's the 3rd
highest paid employee. Has he saved us any money?

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About the authors

Broward County is an unusually rich territory for political news. The Broward Politics blog is devoted to the politicians, the activists, the parties, the policies, the issues, the elections - in the county and its communities.

ANTHONY MAN is the Sun Sentinel’s political writer. Concentrating on local political people, parties and trends, he also covers state and national politics from a South Florida perspective. He's coordinating the Broward Politics blog with contributions from reporters throughout the county. Before moving to the Broward political beat, he covered politics and Palm Beach County government for the Sun-Sentinel, including touch-screen voting and the Supervisor of Elections Office. He's also covered municipal, county, state, and federal elections and made repeated reporting trips to Tallahassee for regular and special sessions of the Florida Legislature. He joined the Sun-Sentinel in 2002 after covering state and local politics in Illinois. Like so many others in South Florida, he's originally from a New York suburb (Rockland County).

BRITTANY WALLMAN covers Broward County and news. A 1991 University of Florida graduate, Wallman started her journalism career at the Fort Myers News Press. She and her husband Bob Norman have two young children -- Creed and Lily. Wallman was born in Iowa and spent half her childhood there, the remainder in Oklahoma. She has covered local government and elections her entire reporting career -- including covering the infamous 2000 recount here in the presidential election. (She has a Mason jar with a "hanging chad'' inside to prove it.)

LARRY BARSZEWSKI covers Fort Lauderdale and Wilton Manors. In the past, he has reported on Palm Beach County government and schools, aging and social issues, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach and state legislative sessions. He wrote for the Denver Post, Bradenton Herald and Miami Herald before joining the Sun Sentinel in 1988. A Massachusetts native, he lives in Boca Raton with his wife, Maggie, and teenage daughters Jessica and Jackie.